Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/10400406. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Category: M/M Fandom: Harry_Potter_-_J._K._Rowling Relationship: Dudley_Dursley/Harry_Potter_(noncon), Harry_Potter/Neville_Longbottom_ (sort_of), Neville_Longbottom/Original_Male_Character(s) Character: Harry_Potter, Neville_Longbottom, Dudley_Dursley Additional Tags: 17-year-olds, I'm_NOT_KIDDING_about_the_rape_warning, seriously, bad decision_making_skills_due_to_trauma, Confession, asking_for_help, way more_realistic_than_i'm_comfortable_with, rape_victim_having_illogical feelings, reaching_out, very_not_okay, none_of_this_is_okay, this_is problematic_on_so_many_levels, please_use_your_judgement, Choking, Near- Death_Experience, Fear_of_Death, oral_rape, guess_i_shouldn't_leave_that tag_out Stats: Published: 2017-03-21 Words: 3640 ****** As if It Never Happened ****** by orphan_account Summary Twenty years after being raped by his cousin, Harry finally asks for help. Notes I am so deeply uncomfortable with the fact that I wrote this I don't really have anything else to say I just want you to know that I'm under no illusions about this... thing If you want to skip to the Comfort, it's after the *** Dudley’s door was open. Harry’s eyebrows knitted; Dudley’s door was never open. He used his room like a secret lair, retreating into it to do things he didn’t want his parents to see. He spent most of his time watching TV in the kitchen - which was why Harry was sneaking down there in the middle of the night, the only time he could grab a snack without being casually tripped - but Harry knew perfectly well (from listening to Dudley and Piers’ carrying whispers) about the video games and DVDs Dudley had stashed in his underwear drawer. Harry had been tempted, occationally, to sneak in there and steal the DVDs, but what would he do with them? He didn’t have a TV. But if the door was open… He set the bag of stolen crisps on the floor where they wouldn’t make any noise, and crept up to Dudley’s door. The orange light and faint noises had given him a hint of what he was going to see, and he swallowed his fluttering anxiety; he was nearly seventeen and he’d never seen a naked woman before, except in horrifying illustrations in evil potions books, which did not count. The fronts of his pyjamas were tented. He checked up and down the hallway, though at this point, if someone was there, he was already caught. He leaned against the doorjamb and peered through the crack. On the screen, a giant bear of a man pounded a skinny dark-haired boy into the mattress. This wasn’t a cheesy movie; there was no music behind them, just barely-audible grunts and moans. Harry’s mouth dropped open and his prick, unexpectedly, throbbed. He was captivated as the huge man grabbed the boy’s hair and shoved the side of his face into the mattress, exposing the long arc of his neck. Whatever he said was lost in the boy’s shuddering moan as he attacked the boy’s neck like a dog. The camera cut, and all Harry could see was the man’s immense cock deep in the boy’s ass. Harry had never been so turned on in his life. Part of him wanted to run and hide, and part of him wanted to stay here and watch this forever. “The fuck are you doing?” Dudley’s low voice growled from behind Harry. A thrum of terror rolled up Harry’s spine. He turned around to look up at Dudley’s red face. For a second he was terrified of what Dudley would say, but then he remembered - it was Dudley’s porno. He didn’t want to have this fight, but he was caught already, so, as always, he just said the first thing that came to mind. “Didn’t know you were into this, Diddykins.” Dudley’s red face deepened to puce, and Harry, who hadn’t been afraid of Dudley in years, was momentarily sick with fear as Dudley’s heavy hands raised towards his neck. He tried to dodge but Dudley was already shoving him hard in the chest. The door slammed against the inside wall as Harry stumbled backwards into Dudley’s room. His face twisted with rage, Dudley followed, slamming the door shut. “Mommy and daddy might wake up,” Harry reminded him. “They’ll see your movie if they open that door.” Dudley reached behind him and, with a click, locked the door. Dudley stepped forward, looming over Harry. He was still fat, but underneath, there was a layer of muscle Harry hadn’t paid attention to before now. His heart was pounding. His wand was in his room. “I could kill you,” Dudley said. “They wouldn’t care. I’d say it was an accident. You snuck into my room. I thought you were a burgler. I didn’t know it was you until the lights came on.” Harry’s mouth was dry. That would normally be an empty threat, but right now, like this? He took a step back, and hit the wall. If he’d had his wand, he would have cast a full-body bind, expulsion be damned - he wasn’t going back to Hogwarts anyway, and if they came for him, tried to put him in Azkaban, he’d be gone before they got here. But he didn’t have his wand. At least when he was in the cemetary, he’d had his wand. He’d always been faster than Dudley, though. He wondered how badly he was going to get beat up before he could escape. “I’ll curse you,” he said. “You’ll get kicked out of your freak school,” Dudley said, laughing. His face was cast in the orange light of the porno. He stood there in the middle of his room, looking like he enjoyed having Harry trapped, but didn’t know what to do now that he had him. Frantic, choking moans echoed softly through the room, interspersed with growling and grunts. The image of the boy’s ass stretched around the man’s cock flashed through Harry’s mind. He could feel his prick getting hard again, listening to this. He couldn’t let Dudley see it. But he did. He saw the moment Dudley’s piggy little eyes registered the tent in Harry’s pyjamas. He saw the flash of recognition, the flicker to the right as he checked the TV, and the slow smile unfolding on Dudley’s face. Harry swallowed. He had no idea what Dudley would do. He had to get out of here. He dodged past Dudley, ducking under the arm that raised to catch him, and got his hands on the doorknob before Dudley’s arm wrapped around his throat and he was dragged back to the wall. Dudley paid no attention to Harry’s fingers clawing at his arm. “Didn’t know you were into this, Harrykins,” Dudley laughed. He loosened his arm around Harry’s throat just enough for Harry to squirm out, but his hand had closed in Harry’s hair before Harry could make it even a step. Harry knew he was panicking. He couldn’t do anything about it. He’d been through so much, but once Dudley had his hands on him, he was a kid again, fighting just because he didn’t know how to give up, too small to have a chance. “Wanna suck it?” Dudley growled in Harry’s ear. Harry swallowed a wave of terrified disgust. “Gross,” Harry snapped. “Nobody wants to suck on your slimy prick, Duddydums.” “I don’t believe you,” Dudley said. He shoved Harry to the floor. Harry’s fingers were numb. He didn’t know that could happen, he thought, vaguely, as his knees hit the ground. Dudley’s fat little hand was gripping his prick, stroking it lazily in Harry’s face. It looked huge from here. His grip in Harry’s hair didn’t loosen. Everything felt… wrong, like he was being Imperiused, except there was no little voice in his head telling him what to do, just freezing, numbing terror. “What the fuck are you doing?” Harry said, and Dudley laughed. “I’ll say you did magic on me. I can still cry whenever I want, you know. I’ll say I was just trying to sleep and you snuck in here and made me let you suck me. Yeah. They’ll kick you out. What’ll your freak friends do then?” Harry fought, but Dudley saw it coming, and shoved him backwards until he was pinned between the wall and Dudley’s bulk. His heart was beating so fast it hurt. He had to drag this out somehow. He had to keep Dudley talking until… until something, until he got lucky like he always did and maybe Aunt Petunia walked in, maybe he set Dudley on fire by accident. It should have happened already. Could you grow out of accidental magic? “Let-” he started, but while his mouth was open, Dudley shoved his hips forward, and it missed and knocked against his cheek for a second but Dudley yanked Harry’s head back and it slid inside like it was easy. Tears prickled in Harry’s eyes as Dudley shoved it deeper, choking him, filling his throat with the hot weight of his prick. He tried to pull away but Dudley wasn’t letting go. He was going to throw up. “If you bite me I’ll fucking kill you,” Dudley sighed. He pulled back just enough that the gagging feeling faded, then shoved it in again. Harry choked. He hit Dudley in the legs, but it was like hitting a tree. Dudley’s pubes curled into Harry’s nose. “You can’t stop me without your magic. I could really kill you, nobody would care,” Dudley grunted, pulling back again, fisting his other hand in Harry’s hair. Harry didn’t think he was crying but he couldn’t actually tell. He made some kind of a noise that was trying to be stop, which was pathetic, Dudley wasn’t going to listen to him, and of course he didn’t, he just groaned and pushed his prick agonizingly slowly into Harry’s throat. Harry couldn’t breathe. He hit Dudley’s legs, grabbed his hands, tried to force him to let go, but Dudley just held Harry against his crotch and leisurely humped his face, never pulling out enough for Harry to breathe. He couldn’t see anything but Dudley’s truck-printed pyjama shirt. His chest burned. The world shrank to the heaviness and the heat of Dudley’s cock in his throat. He was going to die here. Dudley was going to kill him like this and tell his parents some lie, and Voldemort would never be stopped, and Harry’s last moments would be choking back vomit and swallowing Dudley’s prick. His chest hurt so much. He didn’t want to die. Dudley grunted deep in his chest, and his prick pulsed thickly on Harry’s tongue. His hands pulled Harry’s hair for a moment before they relaxed. Just a little. Just enough. Harry twisted out of Dudley’s grip. His prick fell out of Harry’s mouth like a slug. He stood there for a second, wiping drool off his lips, stunned. It didn’t seem real. It seemed like the moment to say something biting but nothing came to mind. Dudley, leaning heavily against the wall, prick hanging soft outside his pyjamas, laughed under his breath. “Come back if you want some more,” Dudley said. Two different men were on the TV behind him, now, making the same noises. The smaller one sank to his knees. Harry turned and ran. He left the crisps in the hall, slipping fast and quiet into his room. He was acutely aware that the only lock on his door was on the outside. He stumbled to his hands and knees by his trashcan, panting, feeling like he was going to be sick. Hoping. Dudley had come so deep in his throat he hadn’t had a choice but to swallow. It didn’t feel real. Nothing felt real. The cold sweat on his face dried. Feeling came back into his fingers, and Harry pushed the trashcan away, and got to his feet. His legs were a little bit shaky. He made it to bed, and pulled the sheet over his shoulders. Hedwig hooted softly. It never happened. He never had to think about it again. *** Twenty years later, at a bar with Neville, Harry stared into the bubbling depths of his beer and wished he’d ordered a firewhiskey. He wished, too, that he could have had this conversation with Ron, but that was impossible. He’d spent so much of his life pretending it hadn’t happened at all that he couldn’t live with his best friend knowing. The faint tingle of magic brushed over his skin. It felt safe; he assumed Neville had cast a notice-me-not spell. “Thanks,” he muttered. He was going to start crying like a fucking child in a second, and he didn’t want this in the papers tomorrow. He didn’t want his kids to know. “I know, I’m a fucking baby, right?” The tears were already starting. God, this was embarassing. Neville’s callused, pudgy hand appeared by Harry’s tankard. Harry barked a short laugh, sniffled, pushed his beer to the side, and covered his face with his hands. “What’s wrong with me? I fought Voldemort and I still can’t fucking let this go.” “Why are you telling me?” From anybody else it would have sounded… different. Bad. But from Neville, it was just a question. Harry swallowed heavily, trying to push down the terror he still felt after so long. “You’re the only gay man I know,” he said. “The only well-adjusted one who actually likes me, at any rate.” Draco Malfoy had gotten divorced last year and run away to France with what was rumored to be his lover of ten years, but even if Malfoy was still in Britain, and even though they’d managed to develop a grudging respect for each other, they weren’t anything like friends. And Malfoy was still a cheating twit even if he was gay. “I don’t know how to say this strong enough that you’ll believe me, but Harry, you were forced. That doesn’t mean you’re gay.” Another painful bark of a laugh. “You don’t have to dance around the word. I was raped. God, I feel like such a fucking… such a fucking girl.” He was crying again. He took a long, deep drink of his beer until the choking feeling faded. Neville’s hand was still resting on Harry’s side of the table, not demanding anything, just offering. Harry couldn’t take it. If he touched anyone right now, something would break. “How do I tell Ginny?” he said. It came out faint, words barely touching his breath. “You don’t have to,” Neville said. “But if you want to, what do you want her to know?” “I don’t know, I… Neville, it’s just, I dream about it sometimes, and I wake up feeling like I’m going to die but I’m still hard and sometimes, if Ginny notices, sometimes we… she thinks I want to have sex and I don’t know how to tell her but all I can see is my cousin’s fucking face . He laughed at me. He told me I could come back if I wanted more.” “It’s been hard keeping this to yourself,” Neville said. Harry stared at the table. Neville was right, but he was missing the point. There was a stone settled in his throat, that one last thing that he needed someone to know about, that he couldn’t say. The part he’d left out of the story. The part where he’d watched the porno, before he’d gotten caught - and the part after, the part where some sick, small part of him that he hated so much had wanted to go back for more. He knew it wasn’t real, it was like a curse, Hermione said (when he pretended he was asking about a different traumatic experience; he’d been through so many that she hadn’t been suspicious) that sort of thing happened sometimes after trauma, but knowing that didn’t help. He squeezed his hands around his tankard. He had to say it. He couldn’t. He couldn’t do it. Instead, unthinking, like always, he said the first thing that came to mind. “Can we fuck?” He could feel the stunned look on Neville’s face. Shame burned in Harry, and he slid out of the booth, ready to accept the lost friendship and the heat of this feeling every time his kids said anything about herbology, but Neville had stood up too, and Harry was suddenly wrapped in Neville’s strong, soft arms. Magic tingled on his back again - a stronger spell, warding away the eyes that must have been turning towards them - and he fought, weakly, until Neville’s hand rested on the back of his head and he lost it. He cried into Neville’s neck. When the sobbing stopped, and he was able to breathe again, he found he was clinging to the front of Neville’s robes, and they’d Apparated to Neville’s living room. Judging by the smells wafting from the basement, Neville’s husband Todd was absorbed in potions and wouldn’t be seen for several days. He pulled away, but Neville didn’t let him go. “You’re not done yet,” Neville said, his grip gentle enough that Harry could easilly have pulled away, but he didn’t try again. He couldn’t remember being held like this. Ever. He settled into the strangely safe comfort of Neville’s arms. “So,” Neville said. “What was that question really about?” Harry stood silent in Neville’s arms for long enough that his legs started to hurt. “I don’t know how else to say it,” Harry said. “I want you to fuck me.” He was crying again. God damn it. “Harry, I can’t. You know I can’t. If you’d asked me before Todd… well, I still wouldn’t. Probably. I don’t know.” Neville laughed nervously, and Harry could feel him trembling, and he had a feeling he’d stepped in something he didn’t know was there. “I’m going to take a guess at something, okay?” Neville said, taking Harry’s shoulders in his hands and pushing him to arm’s length. He looked into Neville’s face, lined, bearded, still gentle. They’d both gotten so old. How had they gotten so old? “I think you want to have sex with a man, as like a... like a test, and I’m the one who happens to be here.” Harry raised his hands, resting them on Neville’s. “You’re safe,” he said. He didn’t know why, didn’t know what it meant, but it was true. “Did you know about these feelings before you got married?” Harry shook his head. “I haven’t felt anything in a long time. You know I wasn’t even scared when I walked into the forest after the battle? I knew I was going to die and I wasn’t scared. I swear I didn’t know. If anything, I thought she could fix it. It would be so different, maybe I wouldn’t think about it. But it didn’t work.” Neville sighed, let go of Harry’s shoulders, and conjured two cups of tea. “I’ve never been raped,” Neville said, settling down on the couch, leaving space for Harry. “I just want to get it out of the way that I don’t know what I’m talking about. But here’s my guess. I think you’re looking for the easy way out, you think, if you have sex with me, somebody safe, all your fear will just… go away. Be replaced by us.” He took a sip of his tea. Harry’s cup was rattling in the saucer. He set it down on the table and started walking. Pacing. “I just want to stop waking up with an erection and my cousin’s eyes in my face,” he snapped. He didn’t mean to sound angry, but he couldn’t help it. “I just want to put my cock in something that feels good, not hollow. Or...” He trailed off. “Fucking me won’t help.” Harry winced; hearing such raw words coming from Neville’s mouth didn’t feel good. “You’ll just see your cousin’s eyes in myface. I don’t want that. Even if I wasn’t married, I wouldn’t want that. I’m not a security blanket. Sorry. That was harsh. Look. I know someone. I have a friend who’s been through… not this, but something like it. I think you should talk to him.” “I don’t think I can do this again.” His face and throat hurt from crying and he was already starting feel the heat of shame in his gut. He should have had more to drink. He didn’t know if he could ever look Neville in the face again. “Try. Please.” Neville reached for Harry’s hand, and Harry, exhausted and ashamed, let him. His palm was hard with calluses, and there was dirt under his short nails. He let Neville pull him onto the couch. “I can tell him the details, if you want. So you don’t have to. You can’t keep this a secret anymore. It’s hurting you.” “I’ll live.” Neville gave him a searching look, and Harry felt uncomfortably like he was missing something. “You should have been scared, going into the forest. You should have been scared.” Harry looked away. It was more complicated than Neville understood. “Just… let me talk to my friend. I’ll send you an owl if he’s okay to talk to you. You can meet here. Nobody else has to know.” “He won’t go to the Prophet?” Neville shook his head. “I’m a war hero too, you know. He’s never told them anything about me.” Harry nodded. His head was swimming. “I don’t think I can Apparate,” he said. “Stay here tonight,” Neville said, standing up, leaving space for Harry to lay down. Harry all but collapsed. “Don’t tell Todd, okay? I don’t want him to be weird around me,” Harry said. Neville pulled the blanket off the back of the couch and spread it across Harry’s body. His hands were gentle and comforting. “I won’t tell anybody but my friend,” Neville said. He squeezed Harry’s shoulder, whispered “Nox,” then walked away in the dark, his footsteps echoing down the basement stairs. Harry pulled the blanket tight around his shoulders, and stared into the middle distance. Hours later, he heard Todd and Neville come up from the basement. They were talking quietly about night-blooming herbs. “He drank a little too much,” he heard Neville say as they shut the door to their room. “He might be around until late tomorrow morning.” “That’s fine,” Todd said. “You know you can have your friends over more often, right?” Neville hummed a yes, and then a soundproofing spell blocked the sounds of their kissing. Harry felt unbearably guilty. He’d never really seen Todd and Neville together before - they were fairly distant in public, like good friends, like him and Ginny. It had never really occurred to him that they might actually love each other. He couldn’t stay here. He threw the blanket off, and took the risk of Apparating home while he still felt unreal and distant. Tomorrow, he would look into memory spells, and everything would be fine. Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!